Airbnb, Booking.com or direct: what OTA commissions do to villa income

Airbnb is putting every host on a single fee. Under the old split model the host paid about 3% and the guest paid 14–16.5% at checkout. Under the host-only model, the host pays the whole 15.5% and the guest sees no separate service fee. Hosts outside the European Economic Area, Indonesia included, switch on September 15, 2026.

The fee applies to the nightly rate plus cleaning and extra-guest fees, not to taxes. To net what you did before, you'd list about 15% higher. That's roughly what guests already paid once the old service fee went on top.

Booking.com doesn't publish its commission. Its partner help pages mention only a small increase for joining the Preferred program. Industry reviews put the base rate near 15% and Preferred near 18%, and we treat those as estimates. Expedia charges 15–20% depending on location, per industry guides, and Agoda shows its rate only inside the partner account.

Source: Airbnb Help Center, article 1857, Airbnb service fees, as of September 15, 2026; Hostfully and Smoobu, 2026; Booking.com Partner Help; industry commission reviews, 2026

Start with what the guest paid and work down. On a Rp 1,000,000 Airbnb booking, the platform keeps Rp 155,000. A mid-market manager takes 15%, running costs another 12%, and card processing about 3%. A tax-resident owner then pays the final 10% income tax on rent.

What reaches you is about Rp 445,000. With a lower management fee or a direct booking in place of the platform, the same booking can leave you Rp 550,000. That's the 45–55% range. It's also how a brochure's 15% gross yield ends up at roughly 8% net.

Source: Rise Real Bali calculation at the rates cited in this guide

Bali's regional tax on hotel services, PBJT, replaced the old hotel tax under Law 1/2022. It applies to villas, guesthouses, cottages, glamping and private homes rented by the night, not only hotels. Badung charges 10% of what the guest pays.

That's where the familiar "plus-plus" comes from. A 10% service charge goes on first, then 10% tax on the total, so the guest pays 21% above the base rate. Price your villa against competitors on the final number the guest sees, since that's what the platform ranks and the guest compares.

Source: Law 1/2022 (HKPD); Badung Regional Regulation 7/2023; Bapenda Jakarta on PBJT hotel services

Your tax status changes the numbers more than your choice of platform. An Indonesian tax resident pays a final 10% of gross rent under PP 34/2017. You become resident once you've spent more than 183 days in Indonesia within any 12-month period, so plan your stays with that in mind.

A non-resident without a permanent establishment pays 20% withholding on Indonesian-source income (PPh 26). Tax treaties usually leave rental income from property to the country where it sits, so they rarely cut that rate. Ten extra points of gross revenue cost a typical villa one to two points of net yield, so work it out before you buy.

Source: PP 34/2017; Income Tax Law, Article 26; Ortax, rental income from Bali villas earned by non-residents, June 2026; Seven Stones Indonesia, 2026

A direct booking saves the commission, and it's usually a better booking. Lodgify's 2026 industry report, based on more than 1.6 million bookings in the US vacation-rental market, found direct stays ran 45.2% longer than platform stays. Guests also booked 51.3% further ahead, at slightly higher nightly rates.

Longer stays mean fewer cleaning turnovers for the same revenue. Earlier bookings mean fewer last-minute discounts. The data is American, so treat it as direction rather than a Bali forecast. No one publishes the share of direct bookings for Bali villas, and we won't invent one.

The tools are cheap: a booking engine and channel manager run on a monthly subscription with no commission per booking. Indonesian payment gateways charge about 2.9% on cards and a flat fee on bank transfers. A direct booking still needs the villa's license and still carries PBJT.

Source: Lodgify, 2026 US State of the Industry Report; Midtrans pricing documentation

Take a villa that grosses Rp 650 million a year. If every booking comes through a platform at 15.5%, commissions cost Rp 100.75 million. Move 30% of revenue to direct bookings and the platform bill drops to Rp 70.5 million. Card fees of 3% on the direct part add Rp 5.85 million.

The net saving is about Rp 24.4 million a year before counting fewer turnovers. The 30% is our illustration. Returning guests, surfers who come back every season and long-stay families are the usual source of direct demand.

Source: Rise Real Bali calculation, illustrative inputs

Most models go wrong on occupancy. Horwath HTL's branded-hotel sample put Bali occupancy at 73.2% for 2025, and BPS counted 64.87% for all star hotels in June 2026. A private villa lives in a different market.

AirROI's data for Canggu, the island's largest villa market with 3,920 active listings, shows 36.2% occupancy at an average Rp 3.79 million a night over the last 12 months. Revenue per listing came to about Rp 376 million, down 23.1% from a year earlier. When an owner brings us a model at 80% occupancy, our first question is where that number came from. If it's hotel data, the model starts over.

Source: Horwath HTL, Bali Hotel & Branded Residences 2026, March 2026; BPS Bali, August 4, 2026; AirROI, Canggu, trailing 12 months, September 2026

Put the platform mix, management fee and your tax status into the yield calculator, or ask us to model a villa from the catalog. Area pages for Canggu and Seminyak show local rates and occupancy.

For the rest of the cost side, read our guides on management fees and guarantees and occupancy by month.

FAQ